Dream

I believe in doing more, in giving more, in being more. I was raised in an area where everybody did the same thing—everybody went to college, got a degree, got a job, got married, raised a family, and lived a life “happily ever after.” But I’ve been stuck. What if I can do more? What if that doesn’t seem like my “happily ever after” life? I want to be more. Maybe I’m involved in something every night of the week. Maybe I don’t sit down until 10PM some nights. In all reality, though, I can’t function otherwise. But now, I’m surrounded by people who live up to this dream of “doing more.” And that’s exactly where the distinguishing factor is—that dream. That dream isn’t so much a dream anymore. It’s reality. I have this dream of traveling to a developing country to volunteer in a clinic for children with developmental disabilities. I have this dream of opening my own occupational therapy clinic and operating it for a few years, ultimately working towards a goal of a bakery in the entrance, staffed by the kids who have grown up in the program. Some people will say I’m crazy, they’ll say that it’s just a dream. I won’t accept that. I live a life dedicated to fulfilling one single word’s expectations: agape. Agape: an unchanging love, a love that expects no re-payment, a love so generous that it can be given to the unlovable, a love that gives everything it has to give. So why let dreams be just that—dreams? Why settle with the ordinary? Maybe dreams are trajectories; maybe they’re plans for the future. Who says dreams have to stay in that realm of imaginations and impossibility? If you want to do more, do more. If you want to give more, give more. If you want to be more, be more. The only limitations for your dream are the ones set in your own mind. You’re worth more than being ordinary. “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”—Romans 12:2.